Woe to the would-be winners

Forgotten lottery tickets leave hundreds of millions unclaimed

LOWELL -- Did you buy a lottery ticket at Simon's Convenience in October?

If so, you may have $25,000 waiting for you.

A "Lucky for Life" ticket purchased at the Rogers Street store Oct. 29 is just one of more than $11 million worth of winning lottery tickets that went unclaimed in 2012.

While small winnings make up most of this pot, there are 14 unclaimed lottery tickets worth $25,000 or more alone.

A winning Powerball ticket worth $1 million sold in Dorchester on Nov. 3 has yet to be claimed. Another $250,000 is awaiting the owner of an unclaimed Mega Millions ticket purchased on March 30 in East Bridgewater.

Just last week, some unfortunate soul lost out on $250,000 after a Mega Millions ticket purchased in Arlington last January went unclaimed one year after the drawing. In Massachusetts, lottery tickets expire after a year -- no exceptions.

"I just assume people don't check their tickets," said Paul Sternburg, executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery. "They lose it. They forget about it. They say, 'I'll check later,' and then they just never check. I think people just put it somewhere, and they forget about it."

Another $100,000 is in jeopardy of being lost if the person who bought a Mass Cash ticket in Medford does not claim their prize by Feb. 12.

The state Lottery knows where winning tickets were sold in its draw games, like Mega Millions or Mega Bucks, once the drawing has taken place. On scratch ticket wins, the Lottery can determine where a winning ticket was sold once the ticket holder claims the prize.

Advertisement

Retailers who sell a winning ticket receive a 1 percent commission on the total prize amount of draw games, up to $50,000, even if the ticket is not claimed. While retailers are not required to post notifications that they sold a winning ticket, many do.

"Most retailers are proud to boast that they've sold a winning ticket with a sizable prize," said Lottery spokeswoman Beth Bresnahan. "Some make homemade signs, and for major prizes the Lottery goes to the selling retail location and hangs a banner celebrating the big win."

At Simon's Convenience a poster hangs on the wall alerting customers that a $25,000 ticket was sold there.

"They probably don't know they won," said store clerk Vick Kumar.

It has been more than 10 years since a major jackpot prize has gone unclaimed -- a $4.6 million Megabucks jackpot won on April 25, 2001, the largest unclaimed prize in state history. Back then the Lottery launched an awareness campaign around the store's location, said Bresnahan.

The Lottery also posts winning numbers on its website, in newspapers, and broadcasts them on television.

"There are plenty of places to check it," said Sternburg.

The Lottery generated $4.7 billion in sales in fiscal 2012 and paid out $3.4 billion in prizes. It returned $983.7 million to the state, which distributed the money to cities and towns.

Unclaimed prize money is returned to the state's general fund each year.

Instant "scratch" games often end before all the winning tickets have been sold. Once all of the grand prizes are claimed in an instant game, the remaining unsold inventory of tickets on retailers' shelves and any inventory that remains in the Lottery's warehouse is collected and the game is ended.

That unclaimed prize money totals in the hundreds of millions. According to the Lottery's website, it has offered 965 scratch-ticket prizes since 2005. Only 726 of those prizes have been collected as of Friday.

Until recently, games would often go on for years. For example, a $10 million "Hold'Em Poker" game started in 2005 did not end until Dec. 31 of last year when all tickets were sold, according to Sternburg.

Sternburg said several games started in 2004 and 2005 took years to sell out because the Lottery was printing 80 million to 100 million tickets per game. The Lottery now only prints a maximum of 40 million tickets.

"We're hoping games will sell out in a year or two years at the most," said Sternburg.

Some people choose to wait to in cash in their tickets. Although a $100,000 Mass Cash ticket purchased at Jay's Variety in Gardner back in October has not been claimed, store owner Jay Hebert said he knows who the winner is.

"They told me they were waiting to claim it for tax purposes," he said.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sun. So keep it civil.